2013 Haswell Retina MacBook Pro...

Yes definitely, when I did 4K tests , the iris pro munched between 1-2GB of main memory. That leaves you with 6GB to play with, I don't personally think thats enough.
 
JGBR said:
No problems found on any of the 15inch. The 13inch always seems to have issues.

The 15inch is so awesome that it will kill mac pro / mba usage if you have one.
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got em thinking about the 15inch one but think the extra 0.5kg could be an issue.

Also its over 2k for the nvidia GPU
 
I carried the latest 13inch macbook air around in my backpack daily , so I knew the weight.

When I went into apple and bought my 15inch, I put the whole box (yes whole box) in my backpack and really didn't feel difference.

The weight in real terms is two coffee mugs on top of a MBA!
 
I don't care about the dedicated graphics as I am not a gamer, and hate using something like cuda hardware encoding for video/applications

Think the 15" base model is going to be my choice, and I may stick the 16gb upgrade option on
 
For me it worked out 90 pounds more for the top model you can buy out of the shop , so I thought it easier to the buy the instore version and get the graphics card. In the end for 90 pounds more I got the CPU bump and graphics card so it's worth considering if you get EDU discount.

I did do a lot of test's in store however and my advice would be base unit with ram upgraded.

I'm now debating selling my MBA but with 15hrs battery life..im pondering lol..but i know what will happen, I will hate the screen and end up just putting my new RMBP in my backpack every day and putting up with remembering to charge!
 
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Increase the drive size too and it get's pretty close.

These machines I just felt were a 'one shot' wonder so might as well get a decent spec in the first place considering the price we are paying for them.
 
JGBR said:
Yes definitely, when I did 4K tests , the iris pro munched between 1-2GB of main memory. That leaves you with 6GB to play with, I don't personally think thats enough.
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Damn it. Base 15" with ram upgrade ordered :) Tried to get one in store, but they only stock the 8GB so going to have to wait a week for it to be delivered :(
 
It's a great machine, the screen is awesome, but also the screen takes some getting used too resolution wise.

Also make sure you real be hawkish about what apps, background tasks etc you are running as some will fire up all the cores and suck your battery dry!
 
JGBR said:
Yes definitely, when I did 4K tests , the iris pro munched between 1-2GB of main memory. That leaves you with 6GB to play with, I don't personally think thats enough.
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I've just played a 4K video on my PC which uses HD4000 graphics. My system used 800mb of RAM, it was a beast of a 4K video as well

Curious as to why the mac used up 2GB :confused:

I'm trying to decide between base 15", and base 15" with 16GB upgrade
 
I'd really suggest going with 16GB, I've been watching my usage over the day i've had the machine and seen it creep up to where 8GB would have to start compressing.

The machine is straggling impressive in every sense.

I did the test of loading my backpack with it instead of my MBA and was pleasantly surprised it barely made a difference.

Battery life is something you will have to keep an eye on as you'll get addicted to the retina screen and will whack up the brightness to maximum but just reducing it to 65% on wifi only , bumped me up over 9 hours usage.
 
JGBR said:
I'd really suggest going with 16GB, I've been watching my usage over the day i've had the machine and seen it creep up to where 8GB would have to start compressing.

The machine is straggling impressive in every sense.

I did the test of loading my backpack with it instead of my MBA and was pleasantly surprised it barely made a difference.

Battery life is something you will have to keep an eye on as you'll get addicted to the retina screen and will whack up the brightness to maximum but just reducing it to 65% on wifi only , bumped me up over 9 hours usage.
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Thanks, how much did you pay in the end, and was it the top tier spec you went for?

oh, and get some pics up :D
 
JGBR said:
I'd really suggest going with 16GB, I've been watching my usage over the day i've had the machine and seen it creep up to where 8GB would have to start compressing.

The machine is straggling impressive in every sense.

I did the test of loading my backpack with it instead of my MBA and was pleasantly surprised it barely made a difference.

Battery life is something you will have to keep an eye on as you'll get addicted to the retina screen and will whack up the brightness to maximum but just reducing it to 65% on wifi only , bumped me up over 9 hours usage.
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13inch version?
 
By the time you customise the base 15inch with extra ram and SSD with apple care it's about 90 pounds short of the model with the 750M you can get straight from store, so I caved in after numerous walks around town thinking about it one morning and thought I'll only regret it later so I think it was worth it.

I ran a 4K video, about 12 programs open at once and iplayer on both models in store.

The staff were quite happy to help out doing so.

I felt the 16GB of ram helped a lot as the more expensive one was completely smooth and not compressing any memory.

The only difference was an average of 9-14 minutes less battery power in every combination we tried.

Surprisingly the 15inch although bigger really didn't feel that much heavier in my backpack compared to my 13inch MBA which was a nice surprise. You can tell it's heavier, but not enough to upset anyone
 
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Remember EDU gets 75% of applecare and with the cash your putting down for this machine and the fact it's pretty much un repairable its worth it.

Been using this machine all day, its more responsive then my 32GB , dual CPU, 8 core mac pro.

Also just turned on my MBA after looking at retina all day...YUK! Once you go retina, you won't go back!
 
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